Honor, Pride, Remembrance

With the roar of fighter jets slicing across a sunny sky, and tears streaking down cheeks to the wail of bagpipes, Apalachicola dedicated its Veterans Memorial Plaza Saturday morning before a large flag-waving assembly.
Music from the 1960s and ‘70's welcomed the crowd as they gathered for the 10:30 a.m. ceremony, everything from "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" to the popular folk and light rock hits of the era.
Tents were set up to shield the speakers and dignitaries from the brilliant July heat, as the torrents of rain, like a gift from God, held off until just after the ceremony was complete.
"Father of all mankind, send your peace upon our nation and the nations of the world. We pray for those who serve the people and guard the public welfare," said Charles Scott, chaplain of American Legion Post 106, as he opened the ceremony with an invocation. "On this special day, we pay our respects to our departed comrades. Let us remember the good deeds they accomplished, let us revere them as good soldiers who fought the good fight.
"Let us never forget those POWs and MIAs who are still are unaccounted for in the wars and the conflicts of the past," he said. "We dedicate this memorial today to the memory and in the honor of those who served so faithfully, so diligently and so courageously in Vietnam.
"May this monument be a personal reminder to each of us, to all of those thousands through the last 232 years who have paid the price, that we may be able to stand here today and proclaim liberty and justice for all, without fear of molestation, in the land of the free," Scott said. "And God help us never to forget those families, those loved ones, who paid it all that their sons, their daughters, their fathers, their brothers, their mothers, all who are left behind and are now grieving."
After the color guard from Tyndall Air Force Base raised the flag at the "Circle of Freedom," Sharon Philyaw, of Apalachicola, sang the National Anthem. Mosconis' son, Derek Brown, in dress uniform as a cadet soon to graduate from the U.S. Military Academy, led the Pledge of Allegiance.
Among the highlights of the ceremony was the reading of a letter from former First Lady Nancy Reagan to Jimmy Mosconis, who championed the Apalachicola project over the last seven years.
"I have clear and very poignant memories of the time I first saw the Three Servicemen Statue," read Eastpoint's Eugenia Watkins, a World War II veteran who served with the Bureau of Naval Personnel in Washington.
Just then, two F-4 Phantom fighter jets from Eglin Air Force Base streaked overhead as the crowd waved their flags in appreciation.
"My husband and I participated in the original ceremony when he presented the Vietnam veterans memorial as a gift to the American people," continued Watkins with Reagan's letter, as the jets prepared their loop back to complete their flyover.
"The memorial had special meaning for my husband and me, as we had spent many years working on behalf of the soldiers and POWs returning from the war in Vietnam. The wall itself stands as sobering symbol of the great cost of that conflict and the Three Servicemen Statue adds a very human and personal element to that monument," read Watkins.
"The original Three Servicemen Statue in Washington DC is an important and moving memorial. I am gratified that this replica now makes it possible for more Americans to see it, and to pay tribute to the brave soldiers who sacrificed so much in the defense of freedom," read Watkins, concluding the letter.
"They reveal themselves as true heroes"
Next to speak was Bob Simons, from Lakeland, president and CEO of FedEx National LTL, which handled the transport of the statue from Farmingdale, NY to Apalachicola. Mosconis, who emceed the ceremony, remarked in his introduction that when the statue arrived in Thomasville, GA, after being taken trucked from the foundry in Farmingdale, NY, he had noticed the abbreviation "LTL" and wondered what it meant.
"It's a no-brainer. It means ‘less than a truckload,'" said Mosconis, as the crowd laughed.
After expressing his professional thanks for the task of transport "such a precious shipment," Simons spoke personally, recalling his service from 1969 to 1971 as an Air Force captain.
"My wife of 37 years is Vietnamese, so we both hold the Vietnamese people, the country of Vietnam and the time I spent there as a soldier in a very special place in our hearts," he said. "Thank you for bringing the honor of our Vietnam service to light in such a public and beautiful way. It has been truly an honor."
In her remarks Lindy Hart, widow of sculptor Frederick Hart, expressed her gratitude to the city for embracing her late husband's artistic work.
"My husband, Rick as he was known, worked very hard to create a sculpture that would portray the veterans in every detail, the dog tags laced in the boots, the bug spray in the boonie hat, he wanted every fold of the fatigue uniform to be a tribute," she said. "And beyond that, he wanted the sculpture to be a heartfelt and simple thank-you from the citizens of this nation to the service and sacrifice of the veterans and their families."
She quoted from her husband's last public speech in May 1999, a few months before his death. He had said then how he wanted to emphasize the youth of the combatants, and how they had been drawn from different parts of American society.
"By the expressions on the faces of the three soldiers, I wished to convey the intensity of the strain and the anguish that was part of the Vietnam veterans' experience on the battlefield and at homecoming," Hart quoted from her husband. "By their endurance and youthful dedication to duty, they reveal themselves as true heroes."
She recalled how her husband had learned from his talks with Vietnam vets that "all treasured their deep bonds of loyalty, comradeship and interdependence, or as one veteran put it, ‘At first we thought we were fighting for our country but soon we came to realize we were fighting for each other.'
"I wanted coming generations to understand the profound importance of the bonds of men in combat. I wanted them to understand the humanity and the nobility of service and the weight of sacrifice," wrote the sculptor.
She closed her remarks to the people of Apalachicola, noting that this memorial is yours, with deepest gratitude."
"Duty is a demanding Mistress"
After expressing gratitude for Mosconis' dedication in bringing the statue to Apalachicola, retired Army Col. Harry Buzzett knit together the wartime experiences of the "greatest generation" with those of the young men killed in Southeast Asia. He acknowledged the county's oldest living World War II veteran, 93-year-old Genaro "Jiggs" Zingarelli, who fought in North Africa as well as France during the war.
An Apalachicola native who graduated West Point in 1944 and later would serve in Europe, Korea and as a battalion commander in Vietnam, Buzzett shared his own experiences during World War II, and that of his older brother, Rex, who was killed and later buried on the beaches of Normandy.
Buzzett told of how he was awoken from his bunk by a falling helmet when he was traveling on a ship to France just before Christmas. The soldiers had left England a day earlier, with the commanding general opting to deliver to the grateful villagers the "big fat American turkeys" that had been destined for his troops' Christmas dinner tables..
It was early morning, so Buzzett, a young second lieutenant, left his bunk to get a cup of coffee, and it was there he learned that one of the ships in his transport had been hit by a German submarine.
The Belgian transport ship S.S. Leopoldville, an 11,500-ton passenger liner converted for use as a troopship, was struck by torpedo in the English Channel five miles from the coast of Cherbourg, France on Christmas Eve 1944. On the day of the attack, the Leopoldville was carrying reinforcements from the 262nd and 264th Regiments, 66th Infantry Division of the U.S. Army towards the Battle of the Bulge. Of the 2,235 American servicemen on board, approximately 515 are presumed to have gone down with the ship. Another 248 died from injuries, drowning, or hypothermia
Buzzett recalled how the French premier would later honor those men as among "the first rank of conquerors" which then led to the colonel's key point, of the meaning of the statue as it served as a twin to the one in Washington. D.C.
"I say those fallen in Vietnam have joined their World War I and World War II brothers in the first rank of conquerors. They did their duty and duty is a funny thing, felt in the soul of every man who wore his country's uniform," he said. "Those names of men on the Vietnam wall echo back to us the word ‘Duty.'
"Their average age was 19. Nineteen!" Buzzett exclaimed. "But they did their duty as any American has ever done their duty. Duty is a demanding mistress; sometimes she's satisfied only with the supreme sacrifice.
"I'm telling you that terrible battle burden was felt by those youngsters in Vietnam who did what they were told to do and who came home, who came home in a box," he said.
In his introduction to Jan Scruggs, founder of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, Mosconis asked aloud how different history might have been had his former corporal not enlisted, but relied on the fact that his Selective Service lottery would not make him eligible for the draft.
In his keynote address, Scruggs recalled how Mosconis had saved him and another soldier when the platoon was caught in a firefight, and how his former staff sergeant had chased after a soldier who had panicked, and ran into the brush.
Later, after the war, Mosconis would call up his former corporal to start the ball rolling on a monumental effort that raised hundreds of thousands in private sector funds, and brought together the city, state and non-profit into the joint project.
As Scruggs completed his remarks, Mosconis and Hart lifted the cloth covering off the plaza's centerpiece: a detail from the Three Servicemen Soldier statue that stands across from the Wall in Washington.
"Dedication, honor, pride, remembrance, all those things are what brought me out here today," said a Panama City man who identified himself only as "Bones," one of the scores of Vietnam Veterans motorcycle riders who rode in for the occasion.
Mosconis and Hart placed wreaths at the foot of the statue's black granite pedestal as a Vietnam-era Huey helicopter buzzed overhead and bagpiper Geordie Ord, of Mexico Beach, played "Amazing Grace." Bugler Mitch Bouington, of Port St. Joe, played Taps to close the ceremony.
The Veterans Memorial Plaza, which sits on acreage owned by the city, will now be managed by the Florida Park Service, which owns and operates the adjacent Orman House. Also under new state management are the Chapman Botanical Gardens across from the memorial plaza.
In an interview earlier this week, Mosconis said he was gratified by the turnout and how well everything had come off for the ceremony, including the lack of rain. "We were lucky we had divine intervention" he said.
"(The jets) were time on target, just like a real military mission," he said. "I knew it would really add to the dramatics of what we were doing."
He noted that the flag that now graces the plaza was flown over the site two days before in one of the F-4s. "We got a certificate from them proving that," he said.
Mosconis also disclosed for the first time that he had encased some items in the concrete foundation below the granite pedestal. "When I poured the foundation under the rock two months ago, I put some items that I brought back from Vietnam," he said, noting that a piece of sand bag from Khe Sanh, pottery from a rubber plantation where Scruggs almost got killed and a small pebble from the jungle were among the items.
It's not just for Apalachicola," he said. "This is a national memorial."